Chapter 48 #2
His mouth closed. I looked at the man I had loved and understood that love could survive revelation.
That was the cruelest truth of all. It had not vanished.
It had curdled. It had become grief and rage and humiliation and a wound beneath all three, deep enough that I wanted to tear it out with my hands.
I hated him. I loved him. Neither canceled the other.
Neither made the other less true. And neither meant I owed him anything. “You were sent to make me trust you.”
His eyes caught mine. Green-gray to silver-blue.
“Did you?”
His brow furrowed.
“Did you make me trust you because he told you to?”
“At first.”
The answer burned. “When did that change?”
Kieran did not respond.
My stomach dropped. “When?”
“I don’t know.”
Kaelros had said the same thing. Bitterness rose into my throat. “How convenient.”
“It wasn’t one moment. There wasn’t a morning I woke up and decided I had betrayed him for you. It happened piece by piece until I realized there was nothing left of his orders I was willing to follow.”
I said nothing.
“I was supposed to report everything you did.”
The chamber seemed colder. “And?”
“I stopped.”
“When?”
“Before the Crucible.”
My heart stumbled.
“I was supposed to tell him the first time your Shadow answered mine. I didn’t. I was supposed to expose you once I knew you could wield both.” His gaze lifted fully to mine. “I buried every trace I could find.”
“You still knew what I was and never told me.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because you were barely surviving what you already knew.”
Anger flared again. “You don’t get to decide what I could survive.”
“You’re right.”
I laughed, sharp and broken. “Can you even hear yourself?”
“I hear every word.”
“You sound exactly like him.”
That one landed. Kieran went utterly still. The Shadow around him ceased moving. For several seconds, I thought I had finally found the wound deep enough to make him look away. He didn’t.
“In some ways, I am.”
Cold traveled down my spine. No denial. No desperate insistence that he was different.
No wounded man begging me to separate him from the monster who raised him.
Kieran stepped closer to the edge of the light but did not cross the distance I had forbidden him to cross.
“I was raised by Kaelros Nyxara. I learned from him. I became useful to him. I killed for him before I was old enough to understand what obedience would turn me into. I learned how to lie without changing my pulse. How to make people tell me things they meant to take to their graves. How to find what someone loved most and understand exactly how it could be used against them.” Shadow crawled across the walls behind him.
“I am his son, Lyra. I have his blood. His lessons. His violence. There are bodies in that corridor because I decided they were standing between me and you, and I did not stop to ask whether they deserved to die before I killed them. I am not going to stand here and pretend loving you washed his blood out of me.”
My breathing slowed.
“I am not good, Lyra.”
“I know.”
“Yes.” He accepted that too. “You do. I have done things you should hate me for. Things you do not even know about yet.”
Yet. Another word that promised more graves beneath the ones already open.
“But keeping you alive will never be one of them.”
The rage came back so fast I shook. “I didn’t ask you to save me.”
“No, you did not.”
“You didn’t ask me what I wanted.”
“No.”
“You decided everything.”
“Yes.”
A scream rose inside me. Kieran saw it. And still did not lie.
“I would rather have you alive and hating me than dead because I gave you the truth too soon.”
I stared at him. There he was. Not Kaelros.
Not entirely. But no hero either. No wounded man asking love to make him better.
No redemption waiting conveniently beneath cruelty.
Kieran Nyxara had chosen me with the same terrifying certainty his father chose possession.
The difference was that Kieran did not need me to call it love.
He did not need forgiveness. He did not need gratitude.
He only needed me breathing. And somehow that frightened me more.
Metal groaned overhead. His Shadow had reached the chains. “Don’t.”
“We have to move.”
“I said don’t touch me.”
“I won’t.”
The darkness tightened around the first chain.
Black-glass shattered. My left arm dropped.
Pain tore through my shoulder so sharply that my knees gave way.
Kieran moved. Instinct took him one step before he caught himself.
His hands curled into fists instead. The second chain snapped.
My body fell. I hit the floor badly. The impact drove agony through my right shoulder, and a cry ripped from my throat before I could stop it. Kieran was beside me instantly.
I recoiled so hard my back struck stone. “Don’t touch me.”
His hands stopped inches from my body. Blood covered them. Not mine. Not yet. “Your shoulder is dislocated.”
“Believe me, I’m aware.”
“You cannot walk out of here like this.”
“Watch me.”
I would crawl before I let him put his hands on me again. I tried to stand. My legs folded before I got one foot beneath me. Kieran caught my upper arm.
I screamed. Not from the shoulder. From him. “GET OFF ME!”
He released me immediately. I shoved myself backward with my good arm until the wall stopped me.
Kieran remained crouched several feet away.
His face had gone white beneath the blood streaking it.
For one horrible second, neither of us moved.
He stared at the place he had touched me as if his own hand had betrayed him.
Then footsteps thundered beyond the ruined wall.
Kieran turned. Whatever had been on his face disappeared. Shadow sharpened.
Eiryx came through the opening first. His clothes were torn nearly to the ribs on one side, blood darkened one sleeve, and a cut split the skin above his brow. His gaze found me. Everything in his face changed. Then he looked at Kieran.
“She won’t let me touch her,” Kieran said.
Nothing else. Eiryx understood far too much from those words. More footsteps followed. Emrin came through first. Then Lidia. Dax. And finally—Raiden.
My heart stopped. He looked like someone had taken a blade and hollowed him from the inside.
Dried blood covered the front of his formal Solstice coat.
Vareena’s blood. He had not changed. Had not cleaned it away.
His eyes found mine. For one unbearable second, we were back on the white floor together.
Vareena between us. Raiden’s hands pressing over mine.
His voice telling her to stay. Her blood warm between my fingers.
Her ribbon. My mouth opened. Nothing came out.
Raiden looked at the blood on my dress. Then at my empty hand.
The hand that had held her ribbon. I started crying. “I’m sorry.”
He flinched.
“Raiden, I—”
“I know.”
I pressed my fist against my mouth. His gaze moved toward the doorway behind me. Murderous rage replaced the emptiness for a heartbeat.
“Did he touch you?”
I knew who he meant. I nodded.
Fire appeared over Raiden’s knuckles. Dax caught his wrist. Not to comfort him. To stop him from turning around.
“We came for Lyra,” Dax said quietly.
Raiden’s jaw clenched.
“He has her ribbon.” My voice broke. “Kaelros. He took it.”
Fire crawled farther up Raiden’s arm. “I’m going back.”
“No.” Kieran’s voice cut through the chamber.
Raiden turned on him. For one second, I thought he would attack. Some part of him wanted to. Kieran did not move.
“We do not have time.”
“She had one fucking thing left.”
“And if you go after him now, you die.”
“I don’t care.”
“I do.”
Raiden’s face twisted.
Kieran stepped toward him. “I need you alive.”
“No one needs me.”
The sentence nearly put me back on the Solstice floor. Lidia closed her eyes. Emrin looked away. Dax tightened his grip on Raiden’s arm.
Kieran’s voice did not soften. “Vareena did. She died keeping Lyra alive. Do not make that meaningless because grief has convinced you your life ended with hers.”
Raiden’s Fire vanished. His eyes dropped. Kieran turned away. There was no comfort in it. Only command. And somehow, tonight, command was the only thing holding any of us together.
Emrin crouched several feet from me. “Can I come closer?”
My eyes burned. I nodded.
She moved carefully. Slowly. When she reached me, she held out one hand but did not touch me. “Your shoulder. We need to put it back.”
The thought made my stomach twist. “Can you?”
“I think so.”
I looked at Kieran. He was watching the doorway. Not me. “I don’t want him to do it.”
Concern flickered across Emrin’s face. “Okay. Lidia.”
Lidia came immediately. They helped me sit. Every movement sent pain across my chest and down my arm. Emrin examined the joint while Lidia held my good hand. Her fingers were trembling. I had never seen Lidia tremble before.
“I’m going to do it quickly,” Emrin whispered.
I nodded.
“Now.”
Pain exploded through me. A scream tore from my throat as bone slid back into place. The chamber blurred. When the darkness cleared, my forehead was pressed against Lidia’s shoulder. She was crying silently. I realized I was holding her hard enough to hurt. “I’m sorry.”
“You’re okay.”
Her voice broke around the words. I released her. She stared at my face. Then the wounds around my wrists. Then the ruined dress. Her expression changed in a way I had never seen before. Not fear. Not grief. Hatred.
“He did all of this?”
I nodded.
Lidia looked toward the doorway.
“We move now,” Kieran said without turning.